12 December 2017, India:
India’s largest telecommunication service provider, Bharti Airtel today announced that an affiliate of Warburg Pincus will acquire up to 20 % equity stake in the DTH arm of Airtel (Bharti Telemedia Limited), for about $350 million.
After this transaction, Airtel will own 80% equity stake in Bharti Telemedia Limited. The transaction has been approved by the Airtel board. Now it is waiting for regulatory approvals. Viraj Sawhney, Managing Director of Warburg Pincus India will join Bharati Telemedia Limited’s board.
MD and CEO (India and South Asia) of Bharti Airtel said, “Airtel has enjoyed a very successful partnership with Warburg Pincus in the past and we are excited to partner with them once again in an attractive and fast growing space. Airtel TV is very well positioned in the DTH space.”
Gopal further added, “We are committed to grow our share of the market through a combination of innovative, value engineering, customer service and distribution initiatives. We look forward to working with Warburg Pincus towards achieving our vision of making Airtel TV India’s leading DTH paltform.”
Managing Director and Co-Head of Warburg Pincus, Vishal Mahadevia said, “The Indian Digital TV market is expanding rapidly and we believe that Airtel DTH is well positioned to capitalise on incremental growth in digitisation and new TV penetration in Tier 3 and 4 towns and rural areas.”
Mahadevia further said, “We are pleased to be working alongside Sunil Bharti Mittal and the Bharti group again following our successful partnership many years ago, and we look forward to supporting the management team during the next phase of the Company’s growth.”
Warburg Pincus was founded in 1966. It is a leading global private equity firm focused on growth investing. The firm has more than $44 billion in private equity assets under management. It has invested in more than 150 companies. The firm is headquartered in New York.
(Image – livemint)